title: Familiar music as an enhancer of self-consciousness in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: The main objective of this paper is to examine the impact of familiar music on self-consciousness (SC) in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). For this purpose, two AD groups of 20 patients matched by age, educational level, gender, illness duration, and cognitive state were assessed using an SC questionnaire before and after music intervention. The SC questionnaire measured several aspects: personal identity, anosognosia, affective state, body representation, prospective memory, introspection and moral judgments. One AD group received familiar music stimulation and another AD group unfamiliar music stimulation over three months. The AD patients who received a familiar music intervention showed a stabilization or improvement in aspects of SC. By contrast, control AD group showed a deterioration of most of the SC aspects after unfamiliar music stimulation, except the SC aspects of body representation and affective state. Familiar music stimulation could be considered as an enhancer of SC in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychobiology and Methodology of Behaviour Sciences, Neuroscience Institute of Castilla-León, University of Salamanca, 37007 Salamanca, Spain.
authors.forename: Eva M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Arroyo-Anlló
authors.forename: Juan Poveda
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Díaz
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gil
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D003243:Consciousness; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D009147:Music Therapy